


watch your back

by BlackBat09



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Blood and Injury, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBat09/pseuds/BlackBat09
Summary: While visiting his ailing mother, Todd gets jumped. Pietro's probably the last person he expected to come to his rescue.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	watch your back

The car is empty, besides them, something Todd knows to be unusual, even at this time of night, even in this direction. To be fair, though, train cars don’t usually have two very obvious mutants sitting in them.

Even less often do they have Pietro, in full costume, cyan spandex and olive skin and white hair flecked with blood, bouncing his knee just a little too fast to be human.

They’d gotten looks, unsurprisingly, and a few people had been brave enough to open their mouths, before Pietro’s sharp eyes finally looked up from the floor and everyone had wisely cleared out, leaving a silent train car but for the clack of track beneath them and the jittery tap of Pietro’s leg. Todd doesn’t even know where to begin to broach the subjects he wants to bring up, tongue wetting his lips noisily as he psychs himself up to try.

“So how’d you, uh- how’d you know where I was at?” he asks, flinching minutely when the quick beat of Pietro’s leg stops and he’s fixed with that pointy stare. “Cuz it wasn’t like- no secret or nothin’, but nobody ever asked, so I figured the only person who knew was like, Mystique, you know?”

Pietro keeps staring, for a long, silent moment, which is weird, considering that Pietro is like if manic energy and noise and caffeine had a mutant baby and raised him up real mean. His face screws up, little by little, and for a second Todd really thinks he’s going to get yelled at, or spat on, but the lines smooth out again except for the wrinkle in his perfect forehead and the twist of his lips before he answers.

“My father’s a dick.”

Todd... doesn’t know what to do with that. He’s sort of aware of it, with how the Maximoffs act, but they’re both so goddamn secretive that he has no real measure for what Magneto did to them. And besides that, the statement doesn’t actually answer his question, so he just... waits.

“Even when Wanda was gone, when he was acting like being sent away was a punishment he could loom over my head if I fucked up, I knew she was better. I knew they were gonna be Magneto and the Scarlet Witch, saviors of mutantkind, delivering us to our birthright, while I was doing shit in the background until I got written out of the histories and painted out of the family portraits and the House of Magnus was just him and the daughter who never, ever disappointed him.” The bounce of his knee starts up again, agitated, shoulder pads creeping towards his ears. “So she was gone. And he came to me with an assignment. Probably figured I’d tell him no, since Wanda wasn’t there and I had just...”

Todd’s seen Pietro lose his train of thought, but never quite like this. The light goes out of his eyes, and, for a second, he tries to find what Pietro could be staring at, but there’s nothing in his line of sight but the floor. His face works minutely, twitching with expressions Todd can’t quite catch, and he swallows back the nervous spit collecting in his mouth before he speaks up. “You’d just what, man?”

Watching him restart is like a jerky animation, moving so quick it’s like he skips frames as he comes to, shakes off the weird funk. “I’d just lost my soulmate, right, my other half, my rock. My sister. So Father figures, I give the depressed bitch one thing to do, and he tells me no, and I can sleep at night knowing I at least gave him one more chance even when I really didn’t at all whatsoever and he failed me so it’s fine to abandon him.” Todd flinches at the words, even if they’re not aimed at him.

“So Father says, ‘one day, Pietro, you will be responsible for those who wish to fight for us. You will stand among their ranks and I expect that you will conduct yourself with dignity and with responsibility for your fellow mutant. You will fight for them, and die, if you must. But I need you to learn this responsibility now.’” Pietro smiles, bittersweet, here and gone. “Whole big speech for ‘I expect you to die like a common soldier someday.’ But he tells me there’s another mutant in the City. Someone who can’t blend in like I do. And he wants me to look after him.”

Todd jolts, blinking in shock at the words as he tries to process them. Does he mean-? “That X-Kid? Spyke?”

It just gets him a squint from Pietro, shaking his head hard enough to dislodge the two little hair antenna from the rest of his blood-specked mane. “Evan wasn’t manifested yet, keep up.” It’s sharp but not mean- Pietro’s honestly not as mean as he tries to seem, not to Todd. “He expected me to say no. But he didn’t know how it was with Wanda gone, how it felt like I could- like I was, doing everything with my eyes closed. Blink and I was done with school. Done with homework. Done with basketball. I needed something else. So I said yes.”

He looks away from Todd, fidgeting with his fingers, the bruising starting to color his knuckles and the flake of dried blood around his nails. “When I wasn’t doing my stuff, I was there. With him. Watching. I didn’t step in all the time, because if he was gonna be an asset, he had to be tough, but... I did step in. I kept some real shit off his back. I kept him alive, a few times, doing what I had to. Hurting who I had to. I was good at it.” Pietro shakes out a hand and Todd watches it with a different appreciation for the almost delicate points of the speedster.

“You hurt people... for...?”

“And then one day he was gone and Father said he was Mystique’s problem and not mine anymore and to just worry about myself,” he finishes, fist clenching again sharply. It takes a moment, a breath, for him to let it out, rolling his wrist and flexing his fingers before he glances at Todd, something pointed but sincere in his blue eyes. “And then I got to Bayville and there you were, running back to the City every weekend with no backup like the genius you were, and I did what I was supposed to do, for my teammate.”

It’s Todd’s turn to fall silent, to look away and puzzle something out, to try and understand Pietro from an angle he’s never quite seen him from. It’s- a lot. But all he can really do is look back up at Pietro from beneath his bangs and offer him a crooked little grin. “I appreciate it, P. You know I got your back, too, right, man?”

It earns him a loud scoff and a toss of Pietro’s head that makes Todd snicker. “Like I need it! I’m fast enough to watch my own glorious ass and your sorry one, and don’t you forget it.”

Still, Pietro glances over and gives Todd the slightest smile, and, despite the throb of bruises, he thinks it’s been a pretty good night.

**Author's Note:**

> blackbat16 on tumblr, BlackBat09 on twitter, hit me up if you'd like!


End file.
